Beneath Another Sky
by crazylittleelf
Summary: Coming home isn't easy.


The cell is always cold. She huddles in a corner, sitting on the bench that is her bed. She tries to force from her mind how familiar it is, huddling in a corner terrified of Walter Bishop.

The cell is always dark. She can feel her way along the wall to the toilet and tiny sink, then back to the bench. She knows the contours of the room, but the darkness is overwhelming, so she stays on the bench, unmoving, as long as she can.

The cell isn't really always dark, but she wishes it was. She wishes he wouldn't stand outside the window. She wishes for a lot of things, but if she can't have any of the big ones, this small thing should be something she can have. It isn't, though.

She doesn't acknowledge him anymore. She's still reduced to choking sobs when he leaves her in the dark again. She wants to scream, but she can't get enough air into her lungs. She sobs in the darkness, huddled in the corner like a child.

The man who interrogates her is thin and blond. He's vaguely familiar but she can't place where she knows his double. He's efficient and unapologetic about his job, about what he does to her. She thinks it's some kind of neuro-stimulant. She thinks the little wands with the glowing fibers on one end would be pretty if she didn't know what they were used for.

The first session lays the ground-rules. They want to know how she's able to move between the two universes, what Walter did to her, what her side knows about them. They want intel to help them fight their war.

The second makes her scream, but she's proud of herself for not telling him anything. Afterwards she lays on the platform that is her bed and trembles, her muscles seizing randomly, painfully.

The third, and she answers every question he asks, and then some.

She looses count after that.

The Secretary watches every time, expressionless until she begs them to stop. Then, and only then, he smiles.

She tries to go back.

She tries to remember what it felt like when she and the others moved from one universe to the other. It seems like she should be able to slip back over there, back home, but the ability stays just out of her reach.

She tries to remember how she harnessed her terror before, when she saw the glimmering buildings, to use that terror to send herself home. She only succeeds in making herself panic.

She squeezes her eyes shut and imagines that she's home, but every time she opens her eyes, the blackness of her cell greets her.

She doesn't bother trying to not cry anymore. She doesn't care if they're watching her. She doesn't care if they can hear her.

She no longer reacts when the lights in her little cell come on. She keeps her eyes closed all the time anyway, trying to pretend that the inky darkness isn't there.

She no longer reacts when they come into her cell to take her to be interrogated, or for the occasional visit to the showers, or to the medical facility when the interrogation goes too far. She gets up if they prod her, will walk if they push her along the dim hallways.

She eats, because they will force her to eat if she doesn't on her own.

She answers their questions, but the answers are never enough.

Eventually she notices that the interrogation sessions stop, the visits from the Secretary stop. Eventually the man who looks like Broyles opens the door to her cell and intones in a dry, familiar voice, "You're being transferred."

They lead her down the hall, shackled and shuffling, out into a cold winter afternoon. The brightness of the sky burns her eyes, makes tears stream down her cheeks, but she stares at it anyway. She shivers violently in the thin prison jumpsuit, cold biting though the fabric like it isn't even there. The season is disorientating. She's been here months and she understands that no one is coming to rescue her.

The new cell is not any bigger than the old one, but one wall is bars, and that gives it a more open feeling. She doesn't feel quite so trapped here. There's a little window in the back wall, set up high, right against the ceiling. She likes to lie on the thin mattress on her bed and watch the light change.

She likes that it's never dark. Not fully. Even at night, when they've turned off the lights in the cells, there are lights out in the hallways. The orange glow from the lights in the yard comes through the window and paints streaks across the ceiling. One of the guards brought her a little clock, and the numbers on it glow blue.

She watches the clock obsessively at first, overwhelmed that she can mark the passage of time again. The routine of the prison is far more soothing than she thinks it should be. It feels almost normal.

There's a library, and she can have one book a week. She reads classics that she never had time for before. Sometimes, though, when she asks for a book, she gets a funny look and a reply that they've never heard of it.

There's a mirror over the tiny sink in her cell. It's polished metal or something, not glass. She knows this because she tries to break it the second day she's there because she can't stand the sight of her hair. All she manages to do is bruise her hands.

She asks one of the guards if there's somewhere she can get her hair cut, and he says that a guy comes in once a week. He'll put her on the list, but the guy isn't very good. He's good enough to run clippers over her head, leaving an inch or so of blond stubble behind. Afterwards, she's startled when she looks in the mirror, but it beats feeling sick every time she looks at herself.

It happens in the middle of the night. Alarms tear her from her sleep, and moments later guards run past her cell. She goes to the bars, but the way the cell is angled, all she can see is the wall on the other side of the hallway. She can hear people shouting, guards and prisoners both, then gunfire, then something like an explosion. She hears footsteps coming down the hallway and retreats towards the back of her cell as the person approaches.

His voice breaks on her name when he sees her, like he's not quite sure if it's really her. Peter curls his fingers around the bars of her cell and stares in with a sort of sick expression on his face before he unlocks the door. She backs farther away, into a corner, because she knows this isn't really happening. She's dreamed it so often, and when she wakes up she's always still here.

His voice is thick with tears, and he's so real she can smell sweat, and the leather of his jacket, and sulfury gunpowder. His hand is hot around her arm when he pulls her away from the wall, pulls her after him as he hurries down the hallway. There's a shimmering rift in the center of the prison yard, undulating between one universe and the other, and he pulls her through it after him.

It's chaos when they come back. She's still sure it's not real. She shivers in Peter's arms in the backseat of an SUV driven by an agent she doesn't know. There are a lot of agents she doesn't know. She's wrapped in Peter's jacket and his arms are almost too tight around her. He presses his face to her short hair, and mutters, "I'm sorry," over and over. She wraps her arms around his neck.

Peter hovers near her at the hospital, until he's drawn away by someone who calls him "Agent Bishop," and she knows that's not right, knows none of it is real. She keeps her eyes open, doesn't even want to blink because she's doesn't want to wake up in the prison cell again.

She can hear Peter and the other agent talking outside the exam room about a fugitive, and a door. Peter looks over his shoulder at one point and meets her eyes, then goes back to talking. He lowers his voice so she can't make out the words.

When he comes back, he looks worried. "I have to go. Astrid's on her way. She'll stay with you until I get back. Will you be okay until she gets here?"

She nods, but as soon as she's alone, she feels panic building, welling to the surface. By the time Astrid gets there, Olivia's sobbing, fighting the doctors who are trying to sedate her. Astrid chases the doctors out of the room, then hugs her until she stops crying.

There's always someone with her. Astrid or Rachel or Peter. Astrid and Peter tell Rachel that she was exposed to a contagion in the field, that it caused memory loss. She isn't sure how they explain her hair, but Rachel doesn't ask. They aren't explaining where she was when she was missing, because she wasn't missing. No one will really answer her questions, but it's clear that if she wasn't missing, the other her was here instead of her.

She wants to hate everyone because they couldn't even tell that it wasn't her, but she just feels hollow and tired. She feels sick that someone else could step into her life and take her place and she's so bland and uninteresting that no one even noticed. She feels numb.

Walter is not there. She's glad she doesn't have to explain to anyone that she doesn't want to see him.

Broyles visits her the second day she's back, and while she recognizes that the caring tone he's using is so different from his counterpart, it still reminds her of over there. She curls into a ball, shaking, and she can hear Peter yelling at Broyles, and Astrid hissing at both of them to shut up.

Later, Peter gathers her into his arms. He's warm and she burrows her fingers under his shirt without thinking. He flinches away, and covers it by muttering that her hands are cold, but she's pretty sure that's not the only reason. She's still good at making connections.

Peter doesn't visit the hospital as often after that.

Astrid opens the door to Olivia's apartment and ushers her inside. She's disoriented, and blinks at the change.

"She rearranged my furniture?"

Astrid starts to say something, then looks around before nodding. The younger agent looks at her with such sympathy that Olivia's eyes fill with tears. "A couple months ago, I think. I can help you move things back."

Olivia looks around the room, lost. There's a picture of her and Ella on the coffee table. It isn't her.

"Thanks for driving me home." Her voice breaks a little on the last word. Astrid's watching her carefully.

"You're welcome, Olivia. Do you want me to get you anything? I mean, like… go to the store? Because we haven't had time to clean… um. It's still…" Astrid trails off and spreads her hands in a helpless gesture.

"No. Thank you. Goodnight, Astrid."

The younger agent chews on her lower lip for a moment. "Peter wanted me to stay with you." Rachel's out of town and Olivia refused to stay in the hospital any longer.

"No. Go home. I'm okay."

"Olivia…"

"Goodnight, Astrid."

Astrid nods and gives her a cellphone with instruction to call if she needs anything, no matter what time it is.

She catalogs the changes as she tours the place that used to be her home. She ignores the obvious signs that Peter has been living there until she opens the top drawer of the side table next to her bed and finds the lube and condoms. She spends the next half hour curled around the toilet, sobbing and dry heaving. She thinks that maybe she didn't want to have been rescued. It isn't the last time she thinks that.

When she feels like she can move again, she leaves. She walks, because she doesn't know where her car is. She has her wallet because Astrid gave it back to her when they left the hospital. She walks aimlessly at first, then with purpose when she realizes what she wants. When she gets to the strip of hotels near the freeway, she gets a room in one. She's a little surprised that her credit card still works, but she supposes she wasn't thought to be dead, so why wouldn't it?

She runs the shower as hot as she can stand, and stays in until she feels limp and sleepy. She only has the sweats she was wearing when she left the hospital, and she doesn't want to put those back on. Her feet are cold so she pulls her socks on. She crawls naked into bed and pulls the blankets up to her chin. The sheets smell of bleach and are smooth against her skin, not sandpapery like the ones in the prison. She leaves the lights on in the room, all of them, and falls asleep.

She's sure she'll wake up in her cell.

Some habits apparently survive anything because she fumbles at the side table and answers the phone before she's fully conscious.

"Where the hell _are _you?"

The terror in Peter's voice jolts her awake. She's confused, because she's still in the hotel, not in the prison cell. She's just confused. "Peter?"

"Are you okay? Olivia, where are you?"

"I'm okay. I'm…" She remembers her townhouse. She remembers why she's at a motel. She chokes back a sob.

"'Livia…"

She clears her throat against the tightness, and tries to keep him from hearing how hurt she is. "I went to a motel."

"Okay. Alight. I'll come ge…"

"No." The word is sharp and panicky. "Peter. I'm fine. I'm tired and I'm going back to sleep."

"What hotel are you…"

She hangs up on him and feels vaguely guilty about it. She turns the phone off when it starts ringing again.

He finds her anyway, and shows up at the door of her hotel room at noon. She wraps herself in one of the blankets and answers the door when he threatens to get the manager to give him a key. The expression on his face is somewhere between anger and hurt. She tells herself that she doesn't care.

He holds out a bag. "I packed some clothing for you. And I stopped by a store and got you a toothbrush and some other stuff."

She edges forward and takes the bag, then she flees into the bathroom and locks the door behind her. She showers again, and goes through both of the little bottles of shampoo and body wash. The room is warm and steamy when she steps out of the shower. She doesn't wipe the steam off the mirror. She digs through the bag and is relieved to find familiar things there, a shirt and jeans that she recognizes. There are panties and a bra, too, and she blushes a little at the thought of Peter picking out underwear for her.

Nausea hits her when she thinks that maybe it isn't the first time he's done that. She leans against the counter and swallows hard until she's sure she's not going to throw up.

He hasn't left by the time she's done in the bathroom like she hoped. He's standing by the windows, looking out at the pylons supporting the overpass. She stands just outside the door to the bathroom and watches him until he turns around. She can't meet his eyes and stares at the floor. He walks towards her, and she doesn't mean to but she backs away when he gets close.

"Olivia." The way he says her name is gentle and instant at the same time. She looks up at him.

"I know why you left your house last night."

She nods and doesn't really know what to say. She thinks he doesn't either, because he starts to say something a few times, but stops.

He clears his throat and speaks softly. "I can't change what happened, and I don't expect you to forgive me. I don't think I'll ever forgive myself."

She drops her eyes to his feet.

"I know there's nothing I can do to fix this or make it easier, but I will do anything, Olivia. Anything you want."

She looks up a little. His hands are clenched at his side, and she can see that he's trembling.

"Help me move?"

Finding an apartment takes less time than she imagined, probably because she's not being very picky about it. It's a two bedroom in a new building that's nothing like her townhouse. She donates most of her furniture to Goodwill and goes shopping at IKEA with Rachel and Ella.

Olivia hates that she has to lie to Rachel about what happened. She hates that the last six months of memories that Ella has of her are lies. Ella talks about things Olivia doesn't remember doing with her. She's amazed how much her niece has grown in six months.

Ella bounces on an over-stuffed sofa. She's dwarfed by it and giggles that her feet just barely stick over the edge of the cushions. Rachel's a few sections back looking at bookcases. "This one. It's really good."

Olivia flops down beside her, and it is pretty comfy. "I think you're right, baby girl."

Ella's sigh is disappointed. "Aunt Liv. I'm not a baby, remember?"

Olivia's getting good at quickly tamping down tears. She smiles at Ella and ignores how badly she aches. "Yeah. I know. I'm sorry, Ella."

Ella pushes away from the sofa and heads back towards Rachel. Olivia's too weary to stand up, weighed down with the understanding that they liked the other her better. That they're disappointed with her. When they come back, Olivia forces herself to her feet.

Rachel looks worried. "What happened?"

Olivia's pretty sure Rachel can see though the fake smile. "Nothing."

Peter tries to explain, completely out of the blue while they're carrying boxes up from her SUV. She thinks this time she's really never going to unpack, not after loosing the only place that she'd considered to be her home since she was nine. He sets a box of DVDs down on top of a stack of other boxes and says, "I should have known it wasn't you."

Olivia freezes. She feels for a moment like her heart's stopped, then it slams back to life, pounding so hard she's dizzy.

"We were just so busy when we came back. Everything was weird, and we were exhausted, and she…"

"Stop it."

"Olivia." He clenches his jaw and looks stubborn and scared. "We have to talk about this. We can't just ignore it."

She shakes her head and stares at her feet. She can feel Peter watching her and it makes her skin crawl. She's reminded of The Secretary, and she's shaking, backing away from him. She bumps into a box, startles herself. She stares down at the box, full of her things in this new place that's supposed to be her home, and when she looks up at Peter she isn't shaking anymore. She's still.

She's angry.

Peter must see the change because tears well in his eyes and he says, "I'm sorry, Olivia."

"You're sorry?"

His mouth opens and he just looks at her for a moment before he lowers his eyes and drops his head.

"You don't get to apologize for this. You don't get to make yourself feel better, or less guilty. I don't wan to hear it, Peter."

When he looks up at her tears are sliding down his cheeks. He looks so hurt and broken that she want to go to him, comfort him. She doesn't because she's hurt and broken, too.

"Get out."

"What?"

"Just go. I'll get the rest of the boxes myself."

After he leaves she sinks to the floor, sits by a pile of boxes and cries. She doesn't talk to him for days.

She tries to retreat, but between Rachel, Astrid, and Peter, she's not allowed to.

Astrid stops by every few days with groceries, and usually cookies. Sometimes banana bread or muffins. It's always something homemade, and Olivia eats it because she feels guilty if she lets it go to waste. She's pretty sure that's a calculated move on Astrid's part.

Rachel hangs out with her several evenings each week. They cook something together and watch TV. Sometimes Ella is with her, sometimes not. It's something normal, something that helps keep her grounded.

Peter visits as often as she'll let him. Some days his presence is comforting, some days, well, it just isn't. Some days she's sure she never wants to see him again, and the next she wants nothing more than to be curled up next to him on her couch, watching old sci fi movies. Peter never mentions the inconsistent way she treats him. He never says anything when she screams at him and throws him out of the apartment and refuses to answer his calls. He doesn't try to apologize again.

Peter tries to get her to leave her apartment a few times a week. Lunch, usually, although sometimes they just go for a walk or go shopping together. She won't go to the movies because the theaters are too dark.

She does not want to admit it, but he's right about needing to talk about things.

She stares at the menu and tries to quell the queasy feeling in her stomach. She can't decide what to order, and eventually Peter orders for her. It's mid-afternoon and they're at a restaurant a few blocks from her apartment. She knows with a sickening sort of certainty that she's never eaten Thai food with Peter before, yet he ordered her favorite thing.

She folds her napkin very carefully and places it on the table. "I can't…" Her throat tightens and she stands up, leaves. She's outside, waiting on the sidewalk without really remembering how she got there. She stares at the dentist's office across the street. She doesn't want to watch Peter apologizing to the waitress and paying for the meals they aren't going to eat. When she hears the door open, she starts walking back to her apartment, keeping her eyes forward. By the time they reach the front door, she's fighting tears.

She walks across the lobby and realizes she's alone. Peter's standing outside, watching her through the windows in the door, and for a moment she considers leaving him. Going upstairs alone and curling up on her overstuffed sofa and crying.

She walks back to the doors and out onto the sidewalk. It's hard to meet his eyes, there's so much pain there, so much pain between the two of them, but she doesn't look away.

"We should go upstairs and talk."

The structure of the new office that she'd seen before she left is fleshed out now, populated with a team of agents and scientists. She thinks Nick was right; it is very Mission Impossible.

"Olivia."

Astrid's voice is warm and welcoming, laced with relief. Olivia forces a smile to her face and tries to not flinch when the younger agent wraps her in a hug.

"How do you like the new digs?"

"It's…"

Olivia looks around at the clean lines and professional spaces, so like the facilities on the other side. She misses the familiar chaos of the lab. She swallows hard and looks at the floor. Astrid curls her hand around Olivia's arm and squeezes gently.

"Hey. Come look at this."

Astrid guides her towards a door along the back wall.

The office in the back is roomy and flooded with light from the bank of windows set high along one wall. The walls are painted a warm, sunny color. There are two desks in the center of the room, facing each other. One is cluttered, papers and electronics scattered over the surface, surrounding the sleek workstation. The other is bare save for the computer. She edges forward and runs her fingers over the surface of the bare desk. Tears well up in her eyes, and she stands there for a long time, long enough for Astrid to leave after patting her shoulder awkwardly.

"That one's yours."

Peter's voice is soft behind her. She hears him take another step closer to her then stop. She keeps her eyes fixed on the desk.

"Whenever you're ready to come back."

She shakes her head and says out loud what she's been thinking for weeks. "I don't think that's gonna happen."

"Olivia." He sounds hurt. "We need you here."

She shakes her head and turns. Through the door she can see the team, this new team she isn't a part of, working.

"They don't. They need you, Peter. Look at what you've done here without me."

He swallows hard, and she understands that it wasn't really without her, it was just without her, and the distinction makes her clench her hand into a fist. She can't meet his eyes and stares at the floor.

He steps closer and she doesn't back away from him. "I need you. I can't do this without you." His voice breaks and he takes another step towards her and his fingers touch the back of her hand. She stares at the tips of his fingers where they brush her skin. She can't find anything to say, but she turns her hand and curls her fingers around his.

She comes into the office a few days a week now. She's learning the new agents' names. She still feels like she doesn't belong there, but she thinks if she keeps going, keeps pretending, that someday that feeling will go away.

One of the new agents follows her around like a puppy, and she's not sure if someone told him to, or if he decided on his own that he was her assistant.

She still avoids Walter if she can, but she no longer panics if she can't. She knows her avoidance hurts him, and she's trying, but it's hard. Astrid says he understands, but Olivia isn't quite sure she believes her. Walter seems smaller now. Lesser.

She sees Peter talking to him sometimes, and the distance between them reminds her of the beginning, right after Walter was released from St. Claire's. She misses both of them, misses the little broken family that had made for themselves.

She falls asleep on the couch a lot now. For some reason it's easier waking up from the nightmares there than it is when she's in her bed. Peter falls asleep on her couch, too. When she wakes up pinned between his side and the back of the couch, she's almost always able to fall asleep again.

He's there most night, now, sleeping on her couch, letting her fall asleep against his shoulder. She thinks sooner or later something has to give, and they'll either move forward or fall apart completely. She's not sure which she wants.

"Hey." Peter nudges her shoulder with his, jostling her. "You awake over there?"

"Am now." She hits him with her elbow and yawns. The TV is muted and Anne Francis screams, silently. "Jerk."

"You wanna go out tomorrow night?"

"Out? For dinner?"

"Yeah, but…" Peter fidgets with the edge of the blanket he pulled over them earlier. "I mean someplace nice. There's a place pretty close to here with live music. It's jazz, but I think you'll like it."

"You're asking me out on a date?"

His forehead creases into a frown. "Yes, Olivia. That's what people do when they're getting to know each other."

"We've known each other for three years, Peter." She doesn't mean for her voice to sound so sad.

He sighs and she leans into him, burrows closer when he circles her with his arms. "I know. I thought, maybe, we could start over."

She nods, because it's not an unreasonable thing to want. She remembers what Walter told her about choices and how they lead to different paths.

She laces her fingers with Peter's and smiles.

"I'd like that."


End file.
